EH_STEVE Posted January 28, 2021 Share Posted January 28, 2021 3 minutes ago, Tyranogre said: There's nothing to work on at the office right now, there won't be any until next Wednesday, and I have two six-and-a-half-hour work days today and tomorrow. I at least get to work from home on Monday and Tuesday, but until then, shitposting in the chat thread is literally all I have. Penis. Netflix. Link to comment
Kodiack Posted January 28, 2021 Share Posted January 28, 2021 Today is a crazy day to work at an investing company. The entire week has been pretty nuts, but today is a whole new level! Link to comment
Edie Napier Posted January 29, 2021 Share Posted January 29, 2021 guys i spent 1.2k on avengers funko pops and about thirty copies of knack 2 and the order 1886 at my local gamestop, can somebody help me understand why buying all their stock is supposed to make me money i need to recoup my FFS savings, somebody pls help April 1 Link to comment
April Posted January 29, 2021 Author Share Posted January 29, 2021 2 minutes ago, Edie Napier said: FFS savings y'all have FFS savings?? Link to comment
Edie Napier Posted January 29, 2021 Share Posted January 29, 2021 1 minute ago, Pichi said: y'all have FFS savings?? it's technically free here, it's mostly money to sit on while i'm recovering Link to comment
DranSeasona Posted January 29, 2021 Share Posted January 29, 2021 I beat FE:TH today. I was pleasantly surprised at how well they juggled conflicting ideas and motives in their characters. I was a little worried about it at first since IMO the early characterizations during White Clouds came off to me as a bit... trope-y? Typical, even? But by the end of the game (Silver Snow route) even some of the more abrasive or generic characters got a chance to shine if you cultivated it, which really sold the experience for me. I also really liked how there is not really intended to be a clear “right” path (unlike say Fates where the obvious answer is the DLC). At the end of the day all of them have pretty strong reasons for their decisions based on their unique circumstances, even if I don’t personally agree with them. Although Claude is probably the most level-headed of the lot, and I think I will do his route next. Link to comment
Tyranogre Posted January 29, 2021 Share Posted January 29, 2021 >Fates puts a huge emphasis on the player's choices and how they impact the story, with neither side necessarily being the "right" one >turns out that's a lie; there's a third Golden route locked behind DLC that renders your choice completely pointless >Three Houses puts a huge emphasis on the player's choices and how they impact the story, with neither side necessarily being the "right" one >as a result, all four routes have important plot points that are left unresolved, forcing you to play the same pre-timeskip route multiple times just to get to the point where the storylines diverge Can we PLEASE go back to the olden days when the writing team was able to focus on a single, cohesive narrative instead of several half-assed ones? Link to comment
Link, the Hero of Dreams Posted January 29, 2021 Share Posted January 29, 2021 At least Three Houses is actually good, and doesn't have fifteen main lords or whatever. Link to comment
Penance Fracture Posted January 29, 2021 Share Posted January 29, 2021 (edited) Welp. Since I've been gone, I came out as trans (trans woman and eventually nebularian—she/they) and RELENTLESSLY FUCKING GAY; went through several unhealthy relationships; nearly starved myself to death; graduated from university (refused the diploma pending legal name change); worked a couple of IT support jobs for the government; got my name legally changed; grifted said government by protesting during work hours throughout the Summer; heavily radicalised to anarchism, anti-capitalism, and anti-racism/anti-"whiteness"; got MACE'd, struck, and arrested by city police; became a Norse pagan; found out and finally accepted that I have autism, ADHD, major depression, anxiety, and borderline personality disorder; and grew strongly in to a desire to see our whole society burned to the ground, returned to the indigenous people from whom it was stolen, and replaced with something more spiritual/connected to the Earth. Just vibin', y'know? How y'all been? Edited January 29, 2021 by ᚬᚾᛏ ᛅᛋᚴᛅ Stephen 776, Doc Brown and Link, the Hero of Dreams 3 Link to comment
Edie Napier Posted January 29, 2021 Share Posted January 29, 2021 welcome to the resistance also i remember saying that quote in your sig Penance Fracture 1 Link to comment
Penance Fracture Posted January 29, 2021 Share Posted January 29, 2021 5 minutes ago, Edie Napier said: welcome to the resistance also i remember saying that quote in your sig The one about sucking dick? ... Honestly, same. 😏 Link to comment
EH_STEVE Posted January 29, 2021 Share Posted January 29, 2021 8 hours ago, Tyranogre said: Can we PLEASE go back to the olden days when the writing team was able to focus on a single, cohesive narrative instead of several half-assed ones? I find that's a growing trend with a lot of games, especially ones like "OMG PLAYER CHOICES AFFECT THE GAME" but they either don't, or the story just...sucks...because they want to encompass everything you do. I think that's one of the (many, many) reasons I love Zelda games. I get to play by myself, offline, without a (Korok Seeds aside) million sidequests of padding and play a game, that tells a story that doesn't overcomplicate itself. I still do enjoy choice-based, open-world, games (currently LOVING Valhalla), but just because "the other guys are doing it" doesn't mean you should too. Play to your strengths, make a GOOD game. Doc Brown, Penance Fracture, Spring and 1 other 4 Link to comment
DranSeasona Posted January 29, 2021 Share Posted January 29, 2021 (edited) 1 hour ago, EH_STEVE said: I find that's a growing trend with a lot of games, especially ones like "OMG PLAYER CHOICES AFFECT THE GAME" but they either don't, or the story just...sucks...because they want to encompass everything you do. I think that's one of the (many, many) reasons I love Zelda games. I get to play by myself, offline, without a (Korok Seeds aside) million sidequests of padding and play a game, that tells a story that doesn't overcomplicate itself. I still do enjoy choice-based, open-world, games (currently LOVING Valhalla), but just because "the other guys are doing it" doesn't mean you should too. Play to your strengths, make a GOOD game. I really don’t mind how they handled Three Houses at all. And I would argue that their decision to build the game like this wasn’t altogether trend-based. Since one of FE’s strengths has always been characterization, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for them to dabble in the choice template for story-telling, since frankly that seems to me a natural fit. Fates dropped the ball on this, sure, but I think Three Houses pulled it off better by having a more complicated history that allows for people to have diverse motivations, giving these choices much more of an impact. Of course having no clear right answer further makes the choices more meaningful because the player is arguably never in a position where they are definitely wrong (or just that the decision is arbitrary like in Fates where the true ending is the DLC and choosing one side over the other has no meaning). So I don’t really see the issue with Three Houses using this dynamic, in theory. Do you just think they didn’t handle it well? I could probably see that depending on what you guys mean. Edited January 29, 2021 by DranSeasona Link to comment
Stephen 776 Posted January 29, 2021 Share Posted January 29, 2021 (edited) Even if the four routes lends itself to interesting perspectives having to repeat the same basic 50 hours campaign thrice over for what amounts to maybe 10% of extra story just isn't good design. The fact that each route is largely the same, yes even post timeskip (sans Crimson Flower), only cheapens that initial decision over multiple playthroughs. I'm not a huge fan of Fates' approach either, since even disregarding that Revelation is the "Golden Route," I was just burned out by the end of the third route. To be fair, I don't think KT/IntSys expect people to play all four routes in succession, but rather play one route and only play the others as you want to replay the game. So, my issue isn't so much the premise of choosing your route, but rather the decision to hide bits of story behind each route. This particularly hurts the narrative when important events, e.g. the Tragedy of Duscur, have their backstory details split among multiple routes since a clear picture never emerges beyond some vague understanding the dubstep cult was probably responsible. Edited January 29, 2021 by Stephen 776 Link to comment
Tyranogre Posted January 29, 2021 Share Posted January 29, 2021 And there's the AM route, where you stop the molemen without even realizing it. Link to comment
DranSeasona Posted January 29, 2021 Share Posted January 29, 2021 Fair enough. I’m not really pretending the game is perfect or anything, I just felt they did a lot better than I was expecting them to. Honestly though for some of the beats I’m missing story-wise I have just been trying to fill in the blanks via wikis and stuff. Sure I shouldn’t have to do that in theory, but humour me for a second as I play devil’s advocate. If the central premise of the game is that you need to make a decision and stick with it and deal with the consequences, this design kind of works. It doesn’t really make sense in theory that one would know everything there is to know or reasonably find out everything in one path, that’s just part of not being omniscient. But was that concept executed well, is the real question, right? I guess that’s debatable but it’s certainly fair if you don’t think they did. It would have helped if the paths were a bit more divergent than they apparently ended up being, sure. At the end of the day I still enjoyed my time with it and felt it was overall a solid experience. Link to comment
Chrom Posted January 29, 2021 Share Posted January 29, 2021 I think Three Houses is okay, but I found myself preferring Fates since I found the gameplay more interesting and engaging, especially when it comes to map variety. Link to comment
DranSeasona Posted January 29, 2021 Share Posted January 29, 2021 25 minutes ago, Chrom said: I think Three Houses is okay, but I found myself preferring Fates since I found the gameplay more interesting and engaging, especially when it comes to map variety. It’s true that map variety is definitely better in Fates. To be honest I preferred the soundtrack in Fates and felt myself more emotionally invested in some of the story moments at the time, even if I overall felt either choice but the DLC route was pointless. So I don’t think the game is without merit or anything... actually some of the plot elements felt a bit more raw to me. Whereas in Three Houses I felt the story was trying to be a grander epic (debate all we will on if they succeeded in that), to me Fates definitely felt more personal. Link to comment
Youngster Joey Posted January 30, 2021 Share Posted January 30, 2021 Three Houses has the better story, settings, and characters over Fates. Which isn't much, as Fates has some of the worst writing in modern history. Literally 95% of support conversations are "man, I sure do like training with you! Let's keep training!" Revisiting Fates is always weird, because the only reason I dug these games so much at the time was because we were all really drunk over the hype and memes. I've tried getting into Three Houses in the past year and half, but the progression of the story is so slow. And the monastery is a chore. Animal Crossing gameplay doesn't belong in Fire Emblem. I haven't even reached the "turning point" of 3H after 25 hours. On another note, I guess there's a remix of the Mother vocal album. It's available on Spotify and Apple Music, but I'm not at all familiar with modern music streaming/hosting services. Do any of them let you buy an album and download the MP3s anymore? Google Play was my go to for that, but it's been discontinued. Link to comment
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